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It’s been an unseasonably warm fall in New York, which was perfect last Saturday for a tour of Newtown Creek—the industrial waterway that serves as part of the border between Brooklyn and Queens—with photographer (and Brooklyn native) Anthony Hamboussi who recently published a gorgeous book of photos also called Newtown Creek.

Newtown Creek the book

Tony was nice enough to revisit a lot of the vantage spots he frequented to create the book. We spent around five hours exploring different views of the creek and comparing the sites as they are now to some of the images preserved in his book. It was especially cool to see the huge shiny silver wastewater treatment plant “digester eggs” up close and in person and then flip backwards through the book to recall various points of their construction. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I encourage you to visit the space between Brooklyn and Queens to see these massive metal eggs that separate sewage from water.

For me, a highlight was getting to see a barge up close. They’re huge!

Barge!

We also stopped to peep local graffiti art, like this metal welded piece by the legendary “Revs.” I love how this piece is structured so that the sun itself becomes the tag.

Fuckin Revs

In addition to the predictably industrial bits, we saw some naturally beautiful hidden bits of beach.

Pretty beach

And stumbled upon art in unexpected places.

Sculptures

All in all, it was a great day. I lost count of how many times we crossed from Brooklyn to Queens or Queens to Brooklyn. It was a lovely interborough adventure. I recommend checking it out for yourself. And whether or not you make the trek in person, I recommend checking out Newtown Creek the book. My five hour tour pales in comparison to the five years Tony spent photographing these in-between and unused spaces. His next project is a study of “La petite ceinture,” the abandoned railway tracks that encircle Paris like “a little belt.” Now THERE’s a tour I’d like to take!

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Collecting trash is a dangerous job. You don’t have to travel to developing countries for examples of why this is true. A Mack truck ran into and killed a sanitation worker this week as he was standing behind his truck in Queens, New York. If you read the comments in this City Room post, you’ll see locals complain that even though this street may have been closed to giant truck traffic, Mack trucks cut through it for convenience. I don’t know yet if that’s true—if the truck that killed this sanitation worker had made an illegal turn or a legal one—either way Frank Justich‘s death was tragic.

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Ah Queens, the most diverse neighborhood on the planet. As if you needed another reason to visit, local artist N’Cognitahas provided one for you: Trash-formaitons. Now through January in the curatorial space of Sabay Thai Restaurant in Elmhurst you can visit a very special trash art exhibition. Check out her website for more info. And while you’re there, click around for images of related expos past, including N’Cognita’s trashtastic Endless Junkmail Scroll.